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by Bhikkhu Bodhi
The most common and widely known formulation of the Buddha's
teaching
is that which the Buddha himself announced in the First
Sermon at Benares, the formula of the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha
declares that these truths convey in a nutshell all the essential
information that we need to set out on the path to liberation. He says
that just as the elephant's footprint, by reason of its great size,
contains the footprints of all other animals, so the Four Noble
Truths, by reason of their comprehensiveness, contain within
themselves all wholesome and beneficial teachings. However, while many
expositors of Buddhism have devoted attention to explaining the actual
content of the four truths, only rarely is any consideration given to
the reason why they are designated noble truths. Yet it is just this
descriptive word "noble" that reveals to us why the Buddha
chose to cast his teaching into this specific format, and it is this
same term that allows us to experience, even from afar, the unique
flavor that pervades the entire doctrine and discipline of the
Enlightened One.
The word "noble," or ariya, is used by the Buddha to
designate a particular type of person, the type of person which it is
the aim of his teaching to create. In the discourses the Buddha
classifies human beings into two broad categories. On one side there
are the puthujjanas, the worldlings, those belonging to the multitude,
whose eyes are still covered with the dust of defilements and
delusion. On the other side there are the ariyans, the noble ones, the
spiritual elite, who obtain this status not from birth, social station
or ecclesiastical authority but from their inward nobility of
character.
These two general types are not separated from each other by an
impassable chasm, each confined to a tightly sealed compartment. A
series of gradations can be discerned rising up from the darkest level
of the blind worldling trapped in the dungeon of egotism and
self-assertion, through the stage of the virtuous worldling in whom
the seeds of wisdom are beginning to sprout, and further through the
intermediate stages of noble disciples to the perfected individual at
the apex of the entire scale of human development. This is the arahant,
the liberated one, who has absorbed the purifying vision of truth so
deeply that all his defilements have been extinguished, and with them,
all liability to suffering.
While the path from bondage to deliverance, from worldliness to
spiritual nobility, is a graded path involving gradual practice and
gradual progress, it is not a uniform continuum. Progress occurs in
discrete steps, and at a certain point — the point separating the
status of a worldling from that of a noble one — a break is reached
which must be crossed, not by simply taking another step forward, but
by making a leap, by jumping across from the near side to the further
shore. This decisive event in the inner development of the
practitioner, this radical leap that propels the disciple from the
domain and lineage of the worldling to the domain and lineage of the
noble ones, occurs precisely through the penetration of the Four Noble
Truths. This discloses to us the critical reason why the four truths
revealed by the Buddha are called noble truths. They are noble truths
because when we have penetrated them through to the core, when we have
grasped their real import and implications, we cast off the status of
the worldling and acquire the status of a noble one, drawn out from
the faceless crowd into the community of the Blessed One's disciples
united by a unique and unshakable vision.Prior to the penetration of
the truths, however well endowed we may be with spiritual virtues, we
are not yet on secure ground. We are not immune from regression, not
yet assured of deliverance, not invincible in our striving on the
path. The virtues of a worldling are tenuous virtues. They may wax or
they may wane, they may flourish or decline, and in correspondence
with their degree of strength we may rise or fall in our movement
through the cycle of becoming. When our virtues are replete we may
rise upward and dwell in bliss among the gods; when our virtues
decline or our merit is exhausted we may sink again to miserable
depths.
But with the penetration of the truths we leap across the gulf that
separates us from the ranks of the noble ones. The eye of Dhamma has
been opened, the vision of truth stands revealed, and though the
decisive victory has not yet been won, the path to the final goal lies
at our feet and the supreme security from bondage hovers on the
horizon. One who has comprehended the truths has changed lineage,
crossed over from the domain of the worldlings to the domain of the
noble ones. Such a disciple is incapable of regression to the ranks of
the worldling, incapable of losing the vision of truth that has
flashed before his inner eye. Progress toward the final goal, the
complete eradication of ignorance and craving, may be slow or rapid;
it may occur easily or result from an uphill battle. But however long
it may take, with whatever degree of facility one may advance, one
thing is certain: such a disciple who has seen with immaculate clarity
the Four Noble Truths can never slide backward, can never lose the
status of a noble one, and is bound to reach the final fruit of
arahantship in a maximum of seven lives.
The reason why the penetration of the Four Noble Truths can confer
this immutable nobility of spirit is implied by the four tasks the
noble truths impose on us. By taking these tasks as our challenge in
life — our challenge as followers of the Enlightened One — from
whatever station of development we find ourselves beginning at, we can
gradually advance toward the infallible penetration of the noble
ones.The first noble truth, the truth of suffering, is to be fully
understood: the task it assigns us is that of full understanding. A
hallmark of the noble ones is that they do not flow along
thoughtlessly with the stream of life, but endeavor to comprehend
existence from within, as honestly and thoroughly as possible. For us,
too, it is necessary to reflect upon the nature of our life. We must
attempt to fathom the deep significance of an existence bounded on one
side by birth and on the other by death, and subject in between to all
the types of suffering detailed by the Buddha in his discourses.
The second noble truth, of the origin or cause of suffering, implies
the task of abandonment. A noble one is such because he has initiated
the process of eliminating the defilements at the root of suffering,
and we too, if we aspire to reach the plane of the noble ones, must be
prepared to withstand the seductive lure of the defilements. While the
eradication of craving can come only with the supramundane
realizations, even in the mundane course of our daily life we can
learn to restrain the coarser manifestation of defilements, and by
keen self-observation can gradually loosen their grip upon our hearts.
The third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, implies the task of
realization. Although Nibbana, the extinction of suffering, can only
be personally realized by the noble ones, the confidence we place in
the Dhamma as our guideline to life shows us what we should select as
our
final aspiration, as our ultimate ground of value. Once we have
grasped the fact that all conditioned things in the world, being
impermanent and insubstantial, can never give us total satisfaction,
we can then lift our aim to the unconditioned element, Nibbana the
Deathless, and make that aspiration the pole around which we order our
everyday choices and concerns.
Finally, the fourth noble truth, the Noble Eightfold Path, assigns us
the task of development. The noble ones have reached their status by
developing the eightfold path, and while only the noble ones are
assured of never deviating from the path, the Buddha's teaching gives
us the meticulous instructions that we need to tread the path
culminating in the plane of the noble ones. This is the path that
gives birth to vision, that gives birth to knowledge, that leads to
higher comprehension, enlightenment and Nibbana, the crowning
attainment of nobility.
Source: BPS Newsletter cover essay no. 20 (Winter 1991-92). Copyright
© 1992 Buddhist Publication Society . Reproduced and reformatted from
Access to Insight edition © 1998 For free distribution. This work may
be republished, reformatted, reprinted, and redistributed in any
medium. It is the author's wish, however, that any such republication
and redistribution be made available to the public on a free and
unrestricted basis and that translations and other derivative works be
clearly marked as such.
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